Free Energy from the Wind

by Chuck Hall

Wind generators are a viable alternative to generating power by burning fossil fuels. Wind generators produce clean electricity by using only the wind as a power source. There are only two potential problems associated with wind generators. One is the claim that they kill birds. The other is the claim that they damage the looks of the landscape.

Let’s start with the myth that wind generators kill birds. This probably got started in the days of the Altamont Pass, California windmills. These wind generators use shorter blades and must therefore rotate at a much faster rate to generate electricity. Today’s generators use much longer blades with a much greater surface area. Because of this, they rotate at a much slower speed. This slower speed makes it much easier for birds to avoid them. These new blades are a recent development. Therefore any bird mortality study done prior to 2000 would not have incorporated data from the new blade design and is therefore useless in predicting bird mortality with current wind generator designs. Unfortunately this old data is what gets quoted the most often in the media, so people automatically think ‘bird mortality’ when they think of wind generators. In actuality, far more birds are killed by automobiles than wind generators, so the next time someone tells you that “wind generators kill birds,” ask them if they’ve sold their cars.

The most recent study concerning deaths caused by wind generators is the 2001 National Wind Coordinating Committee study, “Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines: A Summary of Existing Studies and Comparisons to Other Sources of Avian Collision Mortality in the United States." According to this study, wind generators cause 2.19 bird deaths per turbine per year.

In contrast, an estimated 10 to 12 million birds are killed each year by automobiles, and up to 1 billion birds are killed each year by colliding with windows. Obviously the new turbine designs are far safer than other avian hazards in the environment.

Now to address the question of whether wind turbines harm the ‘look’ of the landscape; as the adage goes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I’ve seen wind farms. I’ve also seen coal-burning power plants and oil refineries spewing out smoke and pollution. If those are the two choices I have for my landscape, I’d far prefer the former to the latter.

There may come a time when wind turbines are commonplace. There may even come a time when they are viewed as an aesthetic component of the landscape. I wonder…when they started building windmills in Holland centuries ago, did the people complain about them “ruining the landscape?” Yet now those old windmills are looked upon with nostalgia and are seen as works of art. Maybe there will be a time when wind turbines achieve the same status.